


More of a relapse

by purple_cube



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-09
Updated: 2014-03-09
Packaged: 2018-01-15 04:22:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1291174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purple_cube/pseuds/purple_cube
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The world may call it a second chance, but when I came back it was more of a relapse...I will come back to life, but only for you."</p>
            </blockquote>





	More of a relapse

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Let's Make Out II comment ficathon at LJ comm ivoryandgold run by finkpishnets, using the prompt "and I meant everything I said that night". Prompt, title and summary are lyrics from the song The Calendar by Panic! at the Disco.

 

Peeta comes home, plants primroses in the garden and reminds her to call the head doctor. It’s enough to make her want to rid herself of the remnants of Snow and Coin from her clothes and her hair. Her soul is another matter entirely, and not even the woods that she loves can help with that.  
  
*  
  
They sit and eat breakfast, then dinner, in silence. Only Greasy Sae and Buttercup can find the strength to exercise their vocal cords. Lather, rinse, repeat – as her prep team once told her.  
  
*  
  
During the second week, he asks her if she has spoken to Dr. Aurelius. She nods.  
  
He seems pleased. Somehow, that pleases her.  
  
*  
  
At the beginning of the fourth week, she focuses on starting a routine, just like the doctor tells her to. Wake up, eat breakfast, go to the woods, come home, eat dinner, sleep. More complicated than her prep team’s sequence, but Katniss is a quick learner when she wants to be.  
  
She doesn’t catch any prey for another two weeks. Then, she walks into the kitchen dangling a squirrel from its tail, and Peeta and Sae wear matching smiles. For the first time, she smiles back.  
  
The movement doesn’t hurt like she thought it would.  
  
*  
  
It takes two months for him to bring it up.  
  
“I’m sorry about what I said to you. When we were in Thirteen,” he clarifies when he sees her confusion.  
  
“There’s no need to apologize.” She doesn’t mean to be short with him, but they’re having a good day and she doesn’t want to think about _that_ Peeta right now. Or ever.  
  
“There is for me,” he says softly, and there it is. That ache that accompanies the reminder of _that_ Katniss, the one that left him to find his way back alone. The one that even now forgets that he might need something from her every once in a while.  
  
“I watched the Games again with Dr. Aurelius,” he reveals. “What you said, on the beach…”  
  
She remembers. _I do. I need you_.  
  
“I meant it. I still mean it,” she adds after a slight pause.  
  
He gives her a lopsided smile. “Seemed like you did.”  
  
*  
  
The book is half-full when she recites the story of Finnick in his shorts at the elevator and Boggs’s reaction, and they laugh together as she commits her words to parchment. She looks up as her amusement fades, in time to witness his unguarded expression.  
  
He turns his head, embarrassed at being caught out.  
  
“How can you still love me?” she whispers in disbelief.  
  
His only response is a helpless shake of his head, and her laughter returns, because for once, Peeta Mellark has no words of adoration for her.  
  
And then she surprises them both by leaning across to kiss him. It’s soft and quick, but it’s so real that he doesn’t even need to ask.  
  
*  
  
Her routine gets shot to pieces when they start sleeping together in more than the literal sense, and there are days when neither of them leaves their bed. She doesn’t tell Dr. Aurelius this.  
  
*  
  
“When did you know?”  
  
He asks her when they’re both lying breathless and sated, and she can’t help but laugh at his timing.  
  
She shakes her head. “There wasn’t one specific moment. You…you crept up on me.” An image of Finnick Odair forms in her mind, and for once, she smiles, because he is happy and dancing with his wife, and there isn’t a mutt in sight.  
  
“Then…on the beach?”  
  
“I think a part of me already knew at that point.”  
  
He gives her a look like the ones that filled their first (and only) victors’ interview with Caesar – except this time she doesn’t doubt that it’s real.  
  
*  
  
One year in, they each have their own routine. He bakes, she hunts. They both keep an eye on Haymitch, and they both threaten to eat the geese when they get too rowdy.  
  
They laugh and they cry and they cling to each other from the pain as well as the passion.  
  
He repeats his favorite question every now and then, more out of pleasure than necessity. Sometimes, her answer is an echo of her first one. _Real_. Other times, her answer is simply in her smile.  
  
Today, her answer is in her actions and in the way they make each other’s bodies sing.

 


End file.
